THE STORY – At Milan’s Casa Verdi retirement home, elderly opera stars and musicians mentor young students while sharing their remarkable lives. Built by Verdi in 1896, this unique residence unites generations through music and passion.
THE CAST – Claudio Giombi, Chitose Matsumoto, Tina Aliprandi & Lina Vasta
THE TEAM – Yvonne Russo (Director/Writer) & Christine La Monte (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 78 Minutes
The halls of a Milan retirement community are alive with the sound of music in Yvonne Russo’s endearing documentary, “Viva Verdi!” Directed, produced, and co-written by Russo, “Viva Verdi!” spotlights the professional opera singers and musicians who reside at Casa Verdi, a home created for aging artists to thrive in their golden years. Casa Verdi embodies everything a retirement community should be: safe, dignified, and vibrant, to name a few key essentials. What makes this Casa uniquely enriching is its 19th-century history: it was founded and built by Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi in the late 1800s, when musicians in Italy had no pensions. Shortly before he died in 1901, Verdi willed his fortune to the Casa; royalties from his influential operas (“La Traviata” and “Rigoletto” among them) kept the place alive for decades before new donors stepped in. As highlighted throughout “Viva Verdi!”, the composer’s groundwork holds strong to this day. Focusing on an eclectic group of residents, incredibly eager to share their stories, “Viva Verdi!” is a harmonious celebration of community and healing through art.
Russo’s documentary opens with a promising declaration. A citation from Verdi reads, “Among my works, the one I like best is the Home that I’ve built in Milan for accommodating old singers not favored by fortune.” It’s a quote that guides the intentionality of “Viva Verdi!” toward the community that Verdi dedicated his legacy to upholding. We meet various singers, dancers, composers, conductors, and instructors, some of whom faced oppression simply for playing music. For soprano/pianist Chitose Matsumoto (age 79), an immigrant from Japan who arrived in Italy at 20 years old, unions would protest her performances and call her an invader. Chitose arrived at Casa Verdi with one suitcase and was welcomed into a safe space for expression. Soprano/vocal coach Lina Vasta (“ageless”) wanted to be a singer since she was a child, after hearing her mother’s voice, but was forbidden to sing in Sicily (at a time when female musicians were considered “loose women”). When Lina was married, her husband seethed with jealousy whenever she received accolades after a performance. She stopped singing in his presence. Casa Verdi gave this diva, dressed to the nines for the cameras, freedom to perform again.
Chitose and Lina’s perspectives add to a rich tapestry of stories about passion, sacrifice, and perseverance. Russo’s film wisely includes as many of the residents as possible, staying close to not only the essence of the home but also the spirit of this community. And when Russo veers off-premise, she explores some compelling context, mainly through archival footage of residents’ stage performances that emphasize their individual talents. For example, our introduction to baritone and music instructor Claudio Giombi illustrates an effective bridge between past and present. When Giombi opens his suitcase full of stories for the cameras, he’s sharing photos that represent decades of work in the performing arts. Giombi himself is a larger-than-life character who adds wonderful bursts of energy as a consistent presence throughout the film.
Combined with residents’ reminiscences of their personal and professional lives through music, the archives underscore the importance of preserving art for future generations. Preservation is a built-in feature of Casa Verdi. It’s essentially a museum house filled with instruments, music rooms, and neat architectural details such as lyre-shaped door handles. Jacek Laskus’s painterly cinematography creates a warm, inviting atmosphere that points to musical influences at every turn. Such influences can also be felt within the intergenerational connections at Casa Verdi. International music students have been living there since the end of the 1990s and have gained firsthand knowledge that can’t be found in books. The student dynamics don’t feature heavily enough, but their inclusion speaks to the film’s core theme of actively participating in companionship and community.
While Russo maintains strong connections to the musicians, the filmmaking techniques employed (from talking-head interviews to quick contextual montages) pale in comparison to the musicians’ vibrancy and creativity. As a consequence, the structure of “Viva Verdi!” becomes repetitive in its short runtime and drifts in and out of focus. Russo’s approach often evokes the feeling of passing through, rather than engaging in a more in-depth exploration of her subjects. By moving on quickly from one musician’s perspective to another’s, we sometimes lose the emotional resonance and narrative impact of their personal stories. The film misses opportunities to sit with quieter moments and to leave room for certain interactions to build. For example, the film features a sweet couple, the Catenas, who married for love and always walk hand in hand. Their romance sparks a lovely couple’s montage set to the tune, “It Had To Be You,” immediately evoking the late Rob Reiner’s rom-com classic “When Harry Met Sally…” Love is in the air until the film swiftly moves on to another segment.
When the film embraces moments of reflection, we get a glimpse of impactful experiences such as Casa Verdi’s music therapy sessions. The act of listening to powerful voices like the residents’, who have something to say, brings back forgotten memories buried deep within our souls. We can play along to the melodies with notes of our own experiences, as the residents do alongside one another. The sessions are made more poignant, considering some residents are suffering from conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s. There’s an incredible synergy in the room that Russo’s film so intimately captures. This is felt especially during one performance by a resident who apologizes to her fellow musicians for not hitting a high note, and they respond with empathetic applause. It’s a reverberating reminder that the elderly have so much to offer and deserve a space that respects their contributions.
Despite the inevitability that death comes for everyone one day, “Viva Verdi!’ never becomes a story about grief and mourning. The film is full of vibrancy and joy, enveloping us in an energetic community of the arts. Russo captures the essence of residents who grew up with the terribly antiquated mentality that life stops once you reach a certain age. The musicians’ individual and collective energies echo the power art has to heal ourselves and bring our communities closer together. And because “Viva Verdi!” is so vibrant, the film’s conclusion is all the more somber. The stage curtains are not drawn until the end credits, set to composer Nicholas Pike’s original song “Sweet Dreams of Joy,” featuring soprano Ana Maria Martinez. Pike, who also composed the film’s score, helps to conclude “Viva Verdi!” on a life-affirming note that encourages living each day to the fullest.
